Here are some New Orleans webcams

[Guest]

No. Thats not the issue.

[eppie]

:D  Classic.

I'd give him some credit, seeing that he lives in Holland, for knowing a little bit about dikes/levees and how they might break.  The levees in New Oreleans were not blown down, they collapsed due to water pressure and water overflowing and weakening their bases.
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Exactly, that is ussualy the problem. And now (after some discussions with people over here) I also heard there was a structural shortage of funding for the renovation of these dikes and levees despite the fact the people knew they were not of enough good quality.

Ghostiger, when you visit Holland once I will be happy to show you our "deltawerken" a project that startes after our 1953 disaster and was finished halfway the 1980's if I'm correct.
I personally am not an expert on dikes, but the dutch are world famous for protection against the sea.

[Guest]

Do you have any idea how many times I have misspelled that word here on the lounge? Im guessing 10-15 times. Its hardly "classic" any more.

[DeeBye]

Ghostiger, when you visit Holland once I will be happy to show you our "deltawerken" a project that startes after our 1953 disaster and was finished halfway the 1980's if I'm correct.
[right][snapback]88024[/snapback][/right]

I have visited the delta works and I must say that it is an impressive structure. If NO had something like that to hold back the water, it would have survived.

[kandrathe]

No. Thats not the issue.
[right][snapback]88022[/snapback][/right]

Don't be pig headed.

SE UK Coastal Group on Flooding

1953 Holland Disaster

The northern Atlantic ocean is by no means a calm water.

[Guest]

I curious what the wind speed was. It doesnt say in those references.

[whathuh]

MSNBC has posted a story about this group of people.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9164073/
[right][snapback]87975[/snapback][/right]

Now I feel awful for my earlier posts. I don't think my usual excuse of "population control" will work for this mess.

What really caught my attention was "The Real News" and "It is a zoo out there though, make no mistake. Anyone who is on the streets is in immediate danger of being robbed and killed. It's that bad."

[Occhidiangela]

Now I feel awful for my earlier posts.  I don't think my usual excuse of "population control" will work for this mess.

What really caught my attention was "The Real News" and "It is a zoo out there though, make no mistake. Anyone who is on the streets is in immediate danger of being robbed and killed. It's that bad."
[right][snapback]88060[/snapback][/right]

From the article:

To save bandwidth, they had to take down the humor site SomethingAwful.com.

Irony, thy name is Katrina. It took something awful to shut down Something Awful. :wacko:

Occhi

[kandrathe]

I curious what the wind speed was. It doesnt say in those references.
[right][snapback]88055[/snapback][/right]

In comparing storm surge effects, wind speed is somewhat irrelevant.

My point is that it's important to note that not all Hurricanes in the Atlantic hit the Americas. Just that many more of them tend to hit the Americas than those that gather strength and then plummet into Europe. The frequency of a Category 3 or better storm hitting the Americas trends towards one in ten years, the frequecy for one hitting Europe seems to be about one in 30-50 years.

However, as the planets oceans begin to warm, it will become more and more likely that large Atlantic Hurricanes will not dissipate in cold North Atlantic waters and continue on to slam into Europe. Those that do form, wherever they might be headed, will have more energy.

NA Hurricane Tracks

The issues with New Orleans are that their Levees were know to be sufficient to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. And, now, fate has dealt them a storm they were not prepared to handle As Eppie suggested, the sad irony is that they knew they were unpreppared and this risk existed for many years, and nothing was ever done about it. When fate was cruel to the Netherlands in 1953, they began a 30 year project to protect themselves from something that was far less prevelant than the on US gulf coast. Don't we all look like a bunch of idiots?

[DeeBye]

The issues with New Orleans are that their Levees were know to be sufficient to withstand a Category 3 hurricane.  And, now, fate has dealt them a storm they were not prepared to handle  As Eppie suggested, the sad irony is that they knew they were unpreppared and this risk existed for many years, and nothing was ever done about it.
[right][snapback]88074[/snapback][/right]

That's the real tragedy of this whole thing. They KNEW that they were unprepared for a large hurricane, yet did nothing about it. They've known since Camille that a Category 4 or larger hurricane would wipe them out. What have they done since then? They didn't even have any sort of effective evacuation plan. It was going to happen sooner or later, yet noone did a damned thing about it.

[Guest]

That I agree on " Don't we all look like a bunch of idiots?."


But I still stand by it not being a reasonable place to let people live. As you noted its open to far greater insult from the weather.

It also a bit absurd considering the amount of available land here in the US.

[whyBish]

These things will become increasingly more important with the rising sea levels because of the greenhouse effect.
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Repeat after Bush "there's no such thing as global warming" :huh:

[whyBish]

During the flood, I was down at the Missouri River's edge, filling sand bags and trying to save the community center on a dark and stormy night.  The river's current was running at just under 7 knots.  We managed.  The comeraderie was incredible.
Occhi
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That's where the true heroes are found, but you'll never see it covered.

[eppie]

That's the real tragedy of this whole thing.  They KNEW that they were unprepared for a large hurricane, yet did nothing about it.  They've known since Camille that a Category 4 or larger hurricane would wipe them out.  What have they done since then?  They didn't even have any sort of effective evacuation plan.  It was going to happen sooner or later, yet noone did a damned thing about it.
[right][snapback]88079[/snapback][/right]

Yes protecting you against disasters like this (sometimes impossible) takes a lot of money. Yesterday someone on television said that once every 10,000 years there might be a condition in which the delta-works cannot cope with the water anymore. The New Orleans system had a 30 !? year period, in which something like this could happen.

[Metrocube]

Yes protecting you against disasters like this (sometimes impossible) takes a lot of money. [right][snapback]88116[/snapback][/right]

It also takes politicians with long-term goals to begin these projects, an informed and enlightened population to vote for these politicians, and enough time to get them implemented.

New Orleans lacked at least two of these, perhaps three, which made the disaster inevitable.

We can also thank the limp leadership of FEMA and Homeland Security for making things ever so worse for the survivors. Can you believe that we, sitting at home watching television and reading Internet blogs, knew more about the situation on the ground than the head of FEMA?

><

[jahcs]

State and local governments have been fairly inept on this whole thing too. Yesterday I heard an interview with the mayor of New Orleans and it sounded like he wanted to assign blame and pass the buck. The governor hasn't been much better, at least with what they've shown on the National level.

When the going gets tough and lives are on the line and someone asks who's fault it is you don't point fingers. You stand up and say "I don't give a damn who's fault it is but we're the ones who are going to fix it."

These people need LEADERSHIP. Not a bunch of political backbiting. The people that are in charge need to take charge. I still haven't seen much of that.

[eppie]

State and local governments have been fairly inept on this whole thing too.&nbsp; Yesterday I heard an interview with the mayor of New Orleans and it sounded like he wanted to assign blame and pass the buck.&nbsp; The governor hasn't been much better, at least with what they've shown on the National level.

When the going gets tough and lives are on the line and someone asks who's fault it is you don't point fingers.&nbsp; You stand up and say "I don't give a damn who's fault it is but we're the ones who are going to fix it."

These people need LEADERSHIP.&nbsp; Not a bunch of political backbiting.&nbsp; The people that are in charge need to take charge.&nbsp; I still haven't seen much of that.
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But things need to change, and that asks for some political backbiting.....altough I agree that they should wait a little while with that. As I see it more taxes is the only way to go.
(what do you actually pay in %)

[Guest]

Yawn - yes comment about taxes when you have no idea about that either.

[Occhidiangela]

But things need to change, and that asks for some political backbiting.....altough I agree that they should wait a little while with that. As I see it more taxes is the only way to go.
(what do you actually pay in %)
[right][snapback]88299[/snapback][/right]

Paying taxes does not equal public works constructed. Paying taxes equals a bun fight for who gets to spend what part of "everyone's money" on what they think is important. Ted Kennedy, a competent Senator, was able to spring loose 11 billion and counting in federal money, goodness know how much in State money, and counting, for a major traffic and metro upgrade to Boston. That is one example of how "taxes" get spent. There is not a bottomless pit, and during Clinton's administration, there was a bipartisan effort to curtail government spending. Defense got slammed. Public works also got slammed. Veterans benefits got hit. And so on.

Entitlements, however, did pretty well. Medicare. Social Security.

The current administration continued in that vein, which included two tax cuts, neither of which were warranted based on our budget, debts, and cash flow in a softer economy than the 90's boom.

Raising taxes if the economy is soft can, if carelessly done, induce recession. No politician wants to hazard that without a good reason.

Occhi

[Swiss Mercenary]

Snip on taxes.

Ah, I have actually been thinking about that topic yesterday - how is America hoping to pay for, say, the reconstruction/relief/rescue efforts in NO, as well as the Iraq war, with the loveliness that is the predicted drop in GDP (And, hence, less tax revenue - correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.)

I'm sure that we can all agree that Bush's tax cuts and increase in expenditures couldn't have possibly been expected to prepare for Katrina, but could it be possible that this disaster was just a demonstration of what happens when Things Go Wrong (tm by Skan) They Go Wrong In A Big Way when you adhere to Bush politics?

I'm no economist (So point out if I don't have any clue here), but it seems to me another classic example of short-term-gain-long-term-down-the-drain that seems to be a hallmark of Bush policy, domestic or otherwise.